Child trafficking is defined in this study as the illegal recruitment and transportation of young individuals from one geographical area to another by means of deception, violence, threat, kidnapping and other similar acts. Its victims are usually the children of poor families who live in poor communities in the provinces. Away from their usual networks of social support (i.e., families and friends), these children often end up in exploitative, hazardous and abusive occupations or work conditions. Being more vulnerable to sexual abuse, girls bear the most appalling consequences of child trafficking.

Trafficking of children in the Philippines results from a number of interrelated factors. From the economic standpoint, child trafficking can be traced to poverty that results from unemployment and low wages, uneven rural-urban economic development, and the demand for children's services in certain industries. The traditional expectation that every able household member should help the family, the favorable perception on early work, and the society's patriarchal system comprise the socio-cultural factors to child trafficking. The absence of an effective mechanism to enforce anti-child labor and anti-child trafficking laws, on the other hand, constitutes the political factor that allows the existence of child trafficking.

The extent of child trafficking in the country is not known. The 1995 NSO Survey of Working Children revealed that nearly half a million Filipino children live away from home and close to fifty percent of them are said to be working. Based on the numerous reports about children being hauled from the provinces to work in the cities as commercial sex workers, domestic helpers, and factory or commercial farm workers, one may assume that many of those in the NSO Survey have been illegally recruited and trafficked.

Twenty-four trafficked girl-children have been interviewed for this study. Their ages range between 14 to 17 years with a mean age of 15 years. Most of them came from the Visayas region and found themselves working in Metro Manila, Bulacan and Olongapo City. Eleven ended up in domestic work, eight in entertainment work, and five in factory work. All of them pointed to poverty as the main reason why they agreed to join their recruiters. 

This study documented the experiences of these girls at various stages of the trafficking process: recruitment/ migration, employment, moving out/ rescue, and rehabilitation/ reintegration.

During recruitment, the girls were promised of better paying, respectable jobs. Only a handful of them were told of the specific job they would perform at their destination. While in transit, they were forbidden to talk to anybody and told to lie about their ages and purpose of travel in case somebody approaches them.

Most of them landed in jobs other than what were promised to them. Though their work schedules varied, all of them experienced working very long hours, usually between 12 to 16 hours daily. Aside from long hours of uninterrupted work, the former domestic helpers also suffered from physical and verbal abuse committed by their employer and/or members of their employer's family. They complained of having experienced over-fatigue, body pains and such common illnesses as cold, cough, fever. 

The erstwhile entertainers, on the other hand, suffered from all kinds of sexual advances, sexually transmitted diseases, over-fatigue and body pains. All of them learned to drink and smoke, some even learned to take drugs. Meanwhile, those who worked as factory workers were made to work in an unclean, warm and noisy work environment. They can neither leave their workstation nor talk to their co-workers during working hours. Since they arrived in the factory, they were never allowed to get out of it.

The girls, at the time of the interview, were in temporary shelters undergoing rehabilitation programs in preparation for their eventual reintegration into their families. Nine of them (mostly domestic helpers) escaped                from their employers and sought assistance from authorities. The rest were rescued by the combined rescue team of the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippine National Police, local government units and the Department of Labor and Employment. 

The country is replete with laws on the protection of children. This notwithstanding, the trafficking of children, particularly girls, continues to exist.  Obviously, the culprit is weak enforcement. There is also no monitoring structure to track down recruitment activities of illegal recruiters as well as the movements of children between geographical areas. This problem results from lack of resources (human and financial) of law enforcement agencies.

This study recommends, among others, the conduct of community-based information campaign towards providing informed choices to parents and children; activation of BCPCs to coordinate trafficking prevention activities; provision of incentives to poor parents who send their children to school; requiring barangay clearance to recruit; monitoring of exit and entry points commonly used in child trafficking operations; strengthening of the rescue and labor inspection programs; establishment of a legal protection center for working children; the improvement of services of government-run temporary shelters; and the formulation of a comprehensive program framework for the problem of child trafficking.